Live For the Moment
by Black Tangled Heart
Summary: Before she sets the smoke signal that will rescue Jack and herself, Elizabeth relishes her brief and fleeting freedom.


Live For the Moment

© 2006 Black Tangled Heart

_Disclaimer:_ The film belongs to M. Mouse. The song – I Am In Love With You – belongs to Imogen Heap. I did not use the whole song, though. I wish that the entire thing applied. It's such a great song. The beta'ing is Nita's, as is the dedication. I've been greatly inspired by her sudden influx of wonderful Jack/Elizabeth stories.

_Notes:_ It's been absolute ages since I wrote any Jack/Elizabeth fic. So I wrote one. I hope that Dead Man's Chest will continue to inspire me so that I can get back into a creative groove. I've really been craving some fresh inspiration and it looks like I found it. At first I thought that my Jack/Tia fic (A Reason to Love You) just came out because it was there, begging to be written. But . . . I hope that wasn't just a fluke. I really want to keep writing more.

And so, on with the fic!

_I am in love with you  
I am in love with you baby  
I am in love with you yeah  
Live for the moment_

_Right now another please  
Right now another please, just like that  
Like that another one babe  
And kiss me for longer_

_Oh hey baby don't you run away  
Oh hey baby don't you run away  
Oh hey baby don't you run away  
Come here and finish what you started_

_I am in love with you  
I am in love with you baby  
I am in love with you yeah  
At least for the moment_

_Split second and it's all in smoke yeah  
Split second and it's all in smoke yeah  
Split second and it's all in smoke yeah  
So wet this fire dry . . _.

Elizabeth has to sleep.

Her arms ache from dragging barrels of rum. Her hands and feet and face are so dirty she cannot stand it. She is sure that a raw and unyielding sunburn will settle with a dull ache on the back of her neck and the thin skin of her shoulders and chest. Even after she chokes back some more rum in an attempt to abate the stiffness in her bones and muscles, the pain does not leave her. Her whole body is exhausted from the swim she made earlier that day from the Pearl's plank to the sandy shore of this deserted island. She wonders why she hasn't yet fallen into a sleep deep and numb as death. Her work has kept her awake, but dancing and drudgery have tired her completely. She drops the last barrel of rum at her feet and lets her body go slack.

She feels stupid from the heat. Night has not brought cool breeze to her feverish flesh. She tiptoes past a snoring Jack and makes her way into the unbearably black-blue Caribbean. The water tugs at her fine anklebones and swirls her dress around her weakened legs. She falls gracelessly into the water. It is cool and salty sweet. She swims until she feels a shock of cold run through her and stays there, relishing the release of heat from her body. She breaks the surface of the water with girlish laughter, feeling her drenched hair tumble down her back. After this, she tells herself she will drag her body to the dying fire around which she'd sashayed hours ago and finally, finally, finally sleep. She falls onto her back with a splash and turns a tumbling flip in the water. She feels at home in the sea, like she is washing away her pretences and her propriety. It welcomes her. She feels cleaner and more refreshed than she has in quite some time. If it weren't for the taste of rum still in her mouth, she could fancy herself a girl again, frolicking in the new Port Royal waters upon her arrival from England. But she is not a little girl. She is a woman now. A clean woman. A tired woman.

Soon, so soon, she will sleep.

"We're devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs," she hums under her breath as she twirls through the water. Her dress fans out in a sluggish circle. Seawater falls from her lashes and the tips of her tresses. Her heart skips and hammers and flips over. "Drink up, me hearties yo ho." The stars above her head are scattered among the wispy clouds. The moon is orange, huge and singed. She can't believe where she is. She is free. Free, free, free. Tired, but free. She knows she could never look back. She knows she could live out her days in the ocean and soon make her home aboard a passing ship. She could stay just like this. She could forget the life she knows like she is now forgetting herself.

She can't. She can't forget. She shouldn't, mustn't, can't. She can't.

But oh, the freedom tastes so sweet. Sweeter than anything she's ever known.

"A pirate's life for me." The voice is not her own.

A hand on her hipbone. A hand betwixt her breasts. A mouth on her throat. A voice in her ear: the same voice that rose in harmony as she sweetly sang the song's last line, low and quietly. She startles at the suddenness and surprise and intensity of the contact of Jack's body against hers, warm and close. But he is dirty: smoky, sandy, sweaty, sloshed. She shoves her fist between her lips to keep from crying out.

"So you were thinking that come morning, you'd burn all of our rum and we'd never dance together again, aye?" His hand on her hipbone slowly edges toward the hand upon her sacrum. She bites down on her knuckles, but feels her knees weaken. It is her fatigue, she tells herself. She is tired. And yet now, she has been so sharply startled that she feels awake as ever, as though today has never worn her to the bone. Her heart slams against her ribs.

"Listen to me, Elizabeth. I'm not going back to bloody Port Royal for your bloody Norrington. Not when he'll just swipe what you and I love to swig. We'll get ourselves to the Aztec gold and won't owe anything to anybody. We'll save your whatshisface whelp on our own terms. Or rather, on mine. No smoke. Save the rum. We'll need it. Savvy?"

She turns to face him and his rough hands fall to the curve of her spine and the small of her back. Her cheeks feel very flushed and she finds it difficult to get her breath. "How could we possibly manage that, Jack? If there were a way to do that very thing, I would! But this is the only way that we can get off of this island, isn't it? And please don't tell me you're willing to stay here and kill me for food. You need to leave just as badly as I do!"

"You're happy here, aren't you? And so am I. Can't we spare just another day without all this prattling and running after undead monkeys and skeletons with one eye? I take some time for myself and you for you. This is as close to freedom as you'll bloody well get until you're back aboard the Interceptor, aye? Then it's back to all that proper stuff you high class ladies busy yourself with." His gold teeth glint in the moonlight. He touches her cheek. "Savvy?"

Elizabeth laughs. And then she shivers. It is from the cold, she tells herself. The cold of her wet dress clinging to her skin in every right place. She frees herself from Jack's arms and walks toward the beach, sinking down in the warm sand and looking up at the sky. The world seems so vast just then. She feels a surge of pleasure from deep underneath her ribs. Here, she is no governor's daughter or one to imminently be betrothed to a commodore she does not love. Here, she is not a lady of high society and high expectation. Here, she is herself. And she wouldn't mind one more day of it. Not at all. She smiles briefly as Jack settles himself next to her.

"So you'll stay?" he queries.

She looks him straight in the eye to conceal the lie that her mouth forms. "Yes."

There is still a smile on his face when he finally sleeps again, and Elizabeth knows she will have no sleep that night. She gets to her feet when she sees a brilliant pink dawn slicing through the blue sky. She is dirty again. She has tasted freedom and known its existence to be true, but cannot stay. She is a governor's daughter. As she lights the food, trees and rum aflame, she finds her face damp and warm. It is the seawater, she tells herself. It is the dream that will never be.

Someday, somehow, somewhere, she will be free. That day will not come now, like the colours of morning or the turning of the tide, but it will come. It is what keeps her breath flowing in her body. It is what opens her heart like a flower. It is what draws her to Jack's side, to imprint his mouth with a soft and whispering kiss. She returns to the now roaring fire and billowing smoke to toss the last barrel of rum to the hungry flames.

And then she will sleep.


End file.
